


Silver and Dust

by ipreferfiction



Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Nothing is ever good in this fandom, mostly angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 06:56:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14130564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ipreferfiction/pseuds/ipreferfiction
Summary: {N. Sykes: Rapiers and Psychic Training}When a fellow Fittes agent dies from ghost-touch, thirteen-year-old Quill Kipps seeks help, vowing that no one else is going to die when he could have saved them. An advertisement in the newspaper leads him to the school of Gravedigger Sykes, where he finds more than he bargained for in Jessica Lockwood. Fiercely competitive and with her own internal darkness, the two become fast friends.It’s only three years later when everything falls apart. Then again, that’s what an agent’s life always is, isn’t it? Death on swift wings (and it comes too soon for most).





	1. Death Inevitable

When night fell in London, it was all at once, followed by graduating degrees of shadow. Quill Kipps should know, given the fact that he rarely missed a night. The one he was watching as the night-cab sped along some back street in the direction of their case was in between true black and that velvet-violet of midnight with a sliver of moon. He watched that sliver of moon as it shimmered on the Thames, and as it was caught in silver and iron baubles spinning around and around in an unearthly wind, and as it finally forsook them as they entered the old Grey's factory, site of at least two Specters and five confirmed deaths. The agent sighed, cursing the stupidity of his supervisor, as the group made its way through musty halls and cobweb-dusted rooms, deeper and deeper into the death trap that was the Problem.

Quill's hair was the most colorful thing in the group of monochromatic children, all of them seeming to be made of shadows and silver dust. The thirteen-year-old agent carefully surveyed his group once more, completely ignoring the middle-aged supervisor already in a circle of iron chains. That man was unimportant at the moment, and was only a liability should issues emerge. There were, in total, four others who actually bore some relevance to this haunting, actual agents who could fight the ghost. Twins, Julia and Michael Barrington, were at the front; they were the oldest, at fifteen, and the most experienced. A small, dark-skinned girl named Violet was close behind, carefully taking notes from the older psychics.

"Quill! Where's your head today?" That was the last member of the group, a girl Quill's age. They weren't precisely friends, but life-and-death situations gave them a sense of closeness. Her name was Ruby, and she was his favorite of all of them. She gave him a worried glance through light eyes, flicking her hair behind her shoulders as she moved past him. He noticed the tight grip on her rapier handle, unusual for the generally pacified girl. She was the slow thinker, researching before fighting; he only hoped that it wasn't her undoing.

It was a slow walk to the room that the bodies had been found in. The floor, scuffed by many feet and swathed in thick spiderwebs, soon bore a circle of iron chains inside of which stood Violet, Michael, and Julia. The former was still scribbling readings down in her notebook, though the twins were peering off into the darkness; their Sight would be useful here, where mortal vision failed. Ruby was tracing her fingers over the walls, trying to glean some insight on the ghosts. Her Touch, volatile at best, could help them find the Source long before the ghost could be sensed.

She pulled dust-stained fingers from the concrete and shook her head; nothing. So the hours wore away and the night grew darker, until the only light in the room came from the lantern Quill clutched. All of the agents were safely within the bands of iron; if the ghost appeared lacking warning, it was the only safe place in the room.

Just after the clock hit ten, a chill descended upon the weary group. Greenish fog began to swirl in unnatural light, startling those on the outer edges of the circle. Chairs were folded, rapiers drawn, tea gulped down. Five stood at the ready, all facing outward. All facing the ghost. Quill realized that ghost-lock accompanied the freakish cold, a ghost-lock that could have pulled even agents to their deaths. This was how it hunted and killed. A deadly trap to scourge the earth of the living.

Shaking his head, the flame-haired boy took a step closer to the circle's edge. A faint apparition, smoky and insubstantial, had formed at the entrance to the room. Ruby was staring at it with glassy eyes, almost under its power. He nudged her in the side and she shook the effects of the ghost's power off, shifting the handle of her shimmering rapier. The Phantasm stood there a long time before it moved again, flowing down the hall. Ruby stared after it, seeming not to hear Quill hiss her name. The other three were frantically looking around for the reported second ghost; Ruby was far out of their range of sight, as was Quill.

For a second, he turned back to his bag, but he heard her footsteps before he could even unzip it. Ruby was halfway across the floor, running towards the hall. The Phantasm had lured her in.

He yelled an explanation at Julia, who nodded, and raced after the blonde girl, hoping to get to her in time. If he didn't, the ghost would, and he was not going to carry her body out of that warehouse. She was light and fast, but so was he, and he finally caught up with her in the twisting maze of corridors they had raced down. She was stopped dead in the middle of the tiny room, staring at the swirling smoke barely in a tangible form that stood only feet away. The rapier was slack at her side and her eyes were glazed with ghost-lock. The Phantasm was moving steadily closer, its wispy edges frosting the ground beneath it. Quill had two choices; find and seal the Source, or fight the ghost. He rapidly chose the latter, leaping forward in a feat yet unknown to man, but the ghost had moves as well. It was far closer to Ruby in that moment, and that moment was the defining time. Quill was motionless as he looked into its eyes, realizing too late that ghost-lock had stolen upon him. It was with frozen horror that he watched the pale ghost roll forward and envelop Ruby; the silver of the rapier dissolved it too late.

The girl had never looked so fragile than in that moment. Her blonde hair was blown back on an intangible breeze to reveal a pointed face and terrified eyes. Their pale blue dulled, as did her skin, until her ashen body crumpled to the floor beneath her. It was only then that Quill could wrest himself free of the malignant hold upon him, crying out as he fell to his knees by the girl's body. Her skin was already turning faintly blue and she lacked a pulse; there was no mistaking it, Ruby Seinfeld was dead. And it was his fault.

His team came too late, seeing the boy with hair like fire weep for the girl he had not saved. It was a blur as the others found the Source, as DEPRAC came and took the body away. Quill only really came to consciousness as he and the remaining Fittes agents, still silver and shadowy dust, drove in a silent cab back to the headquarters. It was sunrise by the time they left the warehouse, Ruby’s body long gone.

Sunrises, Quill Kipps realized, were the hopelessness of adults and the wishful thinking of the children. They were illusions of warmth so often followed by cold. They were the glorious sun that rose, a golden glow suffusing the atmosphere before the giant ball of fire rose from behind the horizon. Sunrises were the thing that everyone was united in, agents and adults, wishing for its hasty return. A sunrise was the illusion that you were safe for one more day, that everything was going to be fine. They were all too similar, beautiful in their treacherous lies. A sunrise was what Ruby had wanted to see one last time, but never got to.

It was in that moment that Quill's faith in the children began to waver, as the sun crested a freezing London to chase away the ghosts. In that split second, the sunrise turned dark for him. _No one else,_ he vowed to himself. _No one else._


	2. Glitter and Gloom

"Ruby Seinfeld was a very promising young agent. Her Talents, Touch and Listening, were quite powerful; we are all sorry to see her go. She would have gone far here in Fittes." The team supervisor straightened his grey jacket and started speaking again, but Quill had stopped listening when the man had stepped up to the podium. He was the second speaker at Ruby's funeral, but neither had really said much about the blonde girl. It was the same message; she was a good agent, she was promising, her Talents were strong, she would be missed. None of the information was really new to any of the people who had worked with her, all having witnessed the girl's Talents and personality at work.

Quill knew that a portrait was already being hung in the Hall of Fallen Heroes. There would be a silver plaque beneath it with an elegantly carved name in the center, proclaiming to all that she had been yet another victim in this endless fight. Above the silver name would be an oil painting of the dead girl bearing a somber expression, blue eyes forever watching the carpeted halls of the Fittes Agency. Gifts would be left below; silver and iron trinkets, sprigs of lavender, a sprinkling of salt for symbolic value. It would only be a few years before Ruby Seinfeld would become another forgotten face in the too-long portrait hall. Quill had watched it only too many times, until the dead agents were only sacrificed pawns in a life-and-death game.

No, he would no— _could not—_ let that happen to a girl who had her whole life ahead of her.

The funeral was a grand affair, stretching far longer than it should have. Most dead agents were given a small service, but every so often a public funeral would have to be held, to honor the living and the dead. Ruby's death had come at the precise time that a funeral was needed, and she deserved to have her life celebrated. Quill, however, did not want to celebrate the life of a girl who should have still had hers. Thus the hours passed and the crowds dissipated, leaving only a few teams in the hollowed-out graveyard.

It was the sunsets of London in winter that were the drains of hope, as they had been ever since the Problem started. It was a sunset coming upon the fresh grave marker with a carefully etched name upon the marble surface. Ruby's team had been the last to leave, with Quill lingering long beyond the others. It was he who had laid the bunch of lavender on her headstone and he who had wiped the falling rain from her glittering rapier blade, which lay at the base of her tomb. Sunset was upon the agent as he stood at long last, grey jacket soaked with water, and made his way out of the agents' graveyard, and sunset as he traveled back to his tiny flat. It was quiet as he let himself in and sank into his bed; the sun had finally faded into night. Iron defenses held strong as the fiery agent slept, looking to all the world as if he too had passed from life to the Other Side.

Morning dawned cloudy, rain pouring onto the London streets. _Even the sky weeps,_ Quill thought bitterly to himself as he combed through the morning paper, ignoring the article a few pages in on "the loss of another young agent, who showed promise and exceptional Talent in the field." Ruby was indeed those things, but never did they truly show her for what she was: now more than ever, foolishly optimistic in the face of an inevitable fate. She was only another child soldier in an unwinnable war.

 _And she's dead, so stop thinking about it,_ a voice in the back of Quill's mind said. He realized it was right just as his eyes fell upon a tiny advertisement in the corner of the paper, listing only a name and address, followed by a small string of words: Rapiers and Psychic Training. He had no idea who the person was, bearing only the name of N. Sykes, but if psychic training would help him it was worth the effort. Truthfully, his rapier skills were rather lacking as of late. That was one of the reasons that he had hesitated in pursuing Ruby; he may not have even been able to fight the ghost.

It was that wayward train of thought and the tiny advertisement he had ripped from the morning paper that led Quill to a building on the outside of town that looked more like an old school than the house he was expecting. When he rang the bell and the door was opened by a young boy with a rapier strapped to his belt, the older agent realized that a school it was. He entered slowly taking in the crowded hallway and umbrella stand stuffed full of all different sorts of rapiers. He thought that there was one of the new Italian ones in the mix, but he couldn't tell at a quick glance.

The hall opened into a wider foyer with two opposing doors and a staircase that ran up the middle. A kid's head poked from between the upper-floor railings, offering a toothy grin before disappearing again. The boy who had opened the door scurried into one of the rooms, so Quill followed.

The room was a cross between a library and a sitting room, bookshelves lining walls taped with notes and diagrams and chairs and tables covered in agents' notes. A man in his mid-forties with messy brown hair and grey eyes was looking up from the couch he was perched on, offering the recently-arrived boy a smile. Across the sitting area, a dark-haired girl had her head buried in an old leather book, the kind you always expect ghosts to pop out of. She however, seemed unconcerned about the psychic charge of the dusty tome, given the fact that she was scribbling all over the inside of it.

"I believe you have come about the ad I placed?" the grey-eyed man asked.

  
"Yeah," the red-haired agent replied to him as he stood and offered his hand with a smile.

  
"Nolan Sykes," he stated as Quill shook it. "Pleasure to meet you. You here for the rapier or psychic training?" he questioned, leading the younger boy into the room.

  
"Quill Kipps. Both, I guess," was the reply. It seemed to be good news, as Mr. Sykes grinned widely when he heard. The girl at the table looked up, giving a surprised expression before turning back to her book. Her muffled voice emanated from behind the volume as the sound of her pencil started up again once more.

“Great, another agent. I hope you're good at rapiers, at least. I am so tired of sparring with eight-year-old kids." She, too, was giving him a smile; there was an unspoken challenge in it.

“Why don't you show him the rapier room? You can finish your notes later," Sykes stated. The girl thanked him and slid out of her seat, motioning for Quill to follow. He, still a bit lost, did so.

The pair traveled back into the main hall and up the staircase, veering sharply left. The girl, who Quill learned was named Jessica Lockwood, talked almost nonstop the way up. Most of her speech was explaining how the school ran and worked, though the majority of it was lost on the boy's ears. He was slightly relieved that her talk halted when they entered what he guessed was the rapier room.

It was large and mostly empty, with four skewered practice dummies hanging from the ceiling. A stand of rapiers and a row of faintly glowing shelves stood against one wall, while the other was hung with tools of the trade. The room was rather impressive, though it was run by an adult.

"Heads up!" Quill turned just in time to catch a tossed rapier from Jessica, who now stood across from him. With a grin, she whirled her own around in a complex pattern he had never seen; the blade glittered dangerously in the half-light. "Time to show me what you know."


	3. Bleed and Fight for You

The agents pressed around him, and he began to feel claustrophobic when he thought of their surroundings. Quill did not think at all about the fact that he had watched a team member die in a warehouse almost exactly like the one in which four Fittes agents crowded, all nervous. They were made of shadows even now that night had not quite fallen, hair turning to white, grey, and black beneath the London skies. Even the flames atop Quill's head seemed duller in the darkness.

It was two months since he had begun living in that school of agents with Jessica as his teacher. Somehow, the panic still came to him at Fittes. He had watched as a girl with hair the same color as Ruby's sparred with a boy a little younger, and he had to look away when he passed through the portrait hall. It had only been once that he caught her face, a faint smile on pale lips, when he hurried past and the sharp pang of loss and failure echoed still inside his narrow ribcage.

"Quill!" It was Violet, her notepad in hand, that hissed at him from up ahead. "Come on, we have work to do." He realized that he was lagging behind the group and rushed to catch up, hoping that he had not missed some psychic manifestation and ultimately caused someone to get injured. _Again,_ his brain whispered to him as he moved. _You missed it again._

Julia was setting out a ring of chains as Michael peered into the shadows. His Sight was strongest of any of the team, and he was most useful when darkness had fallen completely. Julia, by contrast, was a Listener. Her talent, paired with her twins, was extraordinarily useful now that no one in the group had any form of Touch.

Night settled in the streets of London, and the noise of traffic faded outside. Quill listened for any hints of movement, but could hear nothing. Nighing living, that was. Listening had never been a Talent of his.

By midnight, the team was restless and shifting within their two iron circles. The reported ghost, a Wraith by the accounts, had not appeared at all throughout the night, and even Julia was pacing within her circle. Quill smiled to himself; if their unshakable leader was acting like that, then it truly had to be a stagnant case. That, or the ghost was just messing with them.  
It was mere minutes before Quill and Michael straightened at the same time; in the corner, a faint shape had appeared. Not enough to be seen by anyone without rather strong Sight, but it was there. There and dangerous, if any of the reports were material to judge by. It had killed two night-watch kids and, supposedly, a relic-man just two nights earlier, and their team had been thrown onto it.

The faint shape appeared again, and Michael met eyes with Quill.

Within a few moments, the teenager was in front of the spot. He was looking down, and Quill's eyes widened as the shape grew more substantial. With an unholy shriek, the Wraith manifested fully and flew towards the struggling agent.  
Two months ago, Quill had watched a Phantasm kill his friend in front of him. Two months ago, he had been frozen. Those two months had made a lot of difference to the thirteen-year-old agent.

It was a split second in which time slowed and a magnesium flare which had been clipped to Quill's belt spun through the air, a shining metal cylinder, and exploded around the ghost without even touching the boy that the Wraith had sought to make its prey.

* * *

 

_Blonde hair and dead blue eyes. Pale skin and a hand that looked faintly blue, reaching towards the frozen boy. He had no control over himself, no control over his body as the girl stole closer to him. He was motionless as the Spectre came nearer, looking far too vulnerable to be dead._

_She had been pale in life, but death rendered her paler. Her blonde hair floated about her sharply pointed features, and her eyes met his. Those eyes that he had seen drain of life now, as dead as they were, met his. Those eyes that had fixated on him as he cradled her dying body, those eyes that had turned to him and begged him to help as she had been enveloped by a Phantasm, met his and were impossibly sad. Those eyes that had made his thin form and fiery hair the last sight of a dying agent, one who was far too young to join the ranks of those she fought. Those blue eyes that he had seen countless times, haunting his sleep and his waking hours._

_Now Ruby Seinfeld hovered before him, a ghost. Ruby, whose life had been stolen by a ghost that he had been powerless, useless to stop. And for once, he did not know if the darkness she promised to him was such a bad thing, after all_

Quill jerked upright in his bed, panting and soaked in sweat. His eyes saw only crushing darkness, and a scream built in his throat before he realized where he was. He was safe inside his room at Gravedigger Sykes' school of sorts. No dead girl's ghost haunted the space at the end of his bed; no ghost-lock was upon him. He was not in danger of death.

The hallway outside his room was peppered with doors; all except one was closed. Within each, a kid slept. Within none was a boy plagued with nightmares about his fallen team member.

"Couldn't sleep?" came a soft voice from the end of the hallway. Quill realized that one of the chairs was occupied with a girl; Jessica Lockwood, in fact.

"It's a long story," he murmured as he took a seat beside her. She offered a surprisingly understanding smile.

"Lost someone close to you?" were the next words to exit her mouth.  
He frowned. "Pretty much, but how did you know?"

"Because whenever I can't sleep, it's the faces of my parents that keep me awake."


	4. Spectral Shadows

Jessica's dark eyes met his over her mug of tea. Somehow, she was still faintly smiling, though now it was tinged with sadness. Quill realized now the air of melancholy that hung about the girl, despite the fact that she hardly ever showed it. It was the mantle of loss, which so many carried ever since the problem had started. It somehow felt wrong that Jessica should be the one to have a burden such as that.

"It was a while ago. I've had time to forget," and he saw right through the lie and into the sorrow that even then haunted her eyes. "And besides, I have Anthony to take care of. I can't really afford to wallow in sadness while my little brother fends for himself."

He nodded and remembered the young boy who had let him in, all curly hair and big, dark eyes. "He's here with you?" he questioned, catching her faint grin at the mention of the younger boy.

"Yeah. He's seven right now," she replied, smiling over the top of her tea. Quill couldn't help but smile back; her happiness was infectious.

"Are you attempting to distract me on purpose?" he asked, and the grin faded just a bit.

"Distraction is often the best way to forget, at least for a little while," was her faint reply. He felt the sadness in her words.

"That's how you deal with it?" he queried. She nodded.

"My parents traveled a lot. They were sort of psychic researchers, but they went all across the world trying to find artifacts that could ward off or trap ghosts; basically, they looked for psychic artifacts that could help agents combat the Problem. I remember waiting with Anthony for them to come home, looking at whatever they had brought back from their trips. To us, it was the best thing we had ever experienced.

"A year ago, the phone rang and I picked it up. It wasn't my parents on the end of the line. I'm sure that you can guess exactly how they died," Jessica spoke bitterly. "I came here after that. Gravedigger is a family friend and a mentor to the both of us, especially Anthony. He's too young not to have parents."

Quill stared at her from his chair. "You didn't have to tell me," he said to her. She gave a sad smile and looked away.

"It's eleven at night and we both had nightmares. It's not like there is an abundance of other people to talk to, Quill."

"True," he replied softly as he looked away. The halls were carpeted in shadows, papered in thin tendrils of darkness. He could see the corners and indents where there were doors, and the staircase a few feet away glowed with faint light. Opposite that, the far end of the hall was dark and cold, which he found oddly fitting for the current conversation.  
Jessica was sipping her tea and looking at him with a clinical eye; not cold by any means, but neither was she asking for anything.

With nothing else to say besides what had been weighing down his very soul like a thousand pounds of stone, he began to speak.

"It was right before I came here. Actually, it was the reason I came, I suppose. I was on a case with my team and utterly useless supervisor, and a Phantasm came. We were expecting a Spectre, and the thing killed a team member. She was the closest thing I had to a friend, and I was in ghost-lock in front of her as she died. I watched the life drain out of her eyes. She was staring straight at me." He rubbed his hand over his face, sighing. The words came tumbling out, faster and faster.

"Her funeral was public because they were trying to show that they actually cared about a girl they sent to _die!_ She just became another pawn in their endless, useless fight against the things that killed her. Now that's all I see when I try to go to sleep at night or when I'm on a case. I wake up feeling like I got ghost touched because it's her ghost reaching for me, her voice saying that I am going to miss something again, because I missed the Phantasm until it had her in ghost-lock, and it's her saying that I will cause someone else's death. It's her face staring at me out of the gloom, whispering that any of my team could be next, that they _will_ be next. It scares me sometimes, what that did to my brain," he ended, whispering. "And I have given up on agents even putting a dent in the Problem. It's been fifty years, and all we have to show for it is a country built on dead children's blood."

Jessica herself looked more ghost than living then, her dark hair falling into shadows behind her, skin like dead ivory. The dark always managed to steal life, even when there were no spirits. She set her tea on the end table and dark eyes met dulled green. There were no words spoken, and yet an understanding was reached between the children who were far too young to have loved and lost so very much.

"I sometimes start thinking about starting my own agency. Not when I'm an adult, but now. Now with only kids, teenagers, people who can actually be useful. My own team," she spoke. "It's never going to happen, or at least not with me. Anthony seems to have other ideas."

Quill gave a half smile. "If you ever do, sign me up," he replied.

The two of them were flipped sides of the same coin. They were agents of their own making, and they were, in that instant, free.


	5. Rainfall and Nightfall

_Tap._

Rain in rivulets down smooth, cold glass.

 _Tap_.

Droplets of water falling, cascading off the roof and into the dark, dark earth. _Grave dirt._

_Tap._

A stone against the gravel of the path, spat back up, colliding with the side of the house.

_Tap._

Ghostly fingers, bones against each other-

“Quill, you've been staring out the window for the past half hour. Are you going to tell me what you're thinking about?" Jessica's voice startled the agent out of his thoughts, and he shifted away from the window.

"Just watching the rain," he replied absently. She raised an eyebrow and leaned against the wall.

"For half an hour? It's your fourteenth birthday— _yes, I did remember—_ and you have nothing better to do than look out the window?" she questioned. He avoided eye contact.

"What else should I be doing? I have an agency case in seven hours, and almost no one is awake this early. We all learn that the day is as good a time to sleep as any, and most of the kids here are agents at Fittes or Rotwell, or training to be such. Gravedigger's with the younger kids now. Besides, my birthday isn't a big deal. Another year closer to uselessness, but I still feel the same," he answered. He was surprised at the bitterness that showed in his tone.

"Shove over and let me sit, too," Jessica commanded as she pushed on his shoulder. He scooted over, and she sat next to him in the massive chair."Why are you so bleak? You're getting older; new qualifications, new respect, and at least you aren't dead," Jessica pointed out. "You are still alive. Be glad for that. I am"

"True," he acquiesced, and she grinned.

"Come on. As your only decent friend, I took it upon myself to get you something." She dragged him out of the room and through the maze of halls, finally halting at the library. He gave her a look of confusion, not being one for a lot of reading, and she pulled him inside. Sliding between the shelves, the pair made their way deeper into the library.

"Here," she finally announced with vigor, grinning up at what appeared to be a bookshelf.

"Books?" Quill asked, giving her a skeptical look. Jessica rolled her eyes, stifling a laugh.

"No, moron, it's a hidden room." She pulled an especially large book off the shelf and stuck her arm in the hole, a look of concentration gracing her features as she reached for something. She gave an exclamation as she seemed to find the object of her search, and the bookshelf twisted inwards to reveal a dusty, well-lit room. The walls were lined with chairs and a couch, and two low tables were in the middle. One was filled with books and old paper, while the other was mostly empty save for a long box and something small and shiny. It was small, but it was clear that Jessica was used to the room.

"Here," she said, tossing him the iron piece that had been on the table earlier. He caught it faster than he expected to, turning over the cool disc in his calloused palms. On one side, there was a spiral of worn words in some long-dead language, only good for scholars to observe. The letters were barely legible underneath the smoothness of the thing's age. He flipped it over, the tip of a finger lightly tracing the elegant carving on the surface. It was a cluster of lavender blossoms, as worn as the words on the other side but still exquisite. The disc hung from a thin iron chain, rough and elegant at the same time.

"What is this?" he questioned; not a coin, but he didn't know what else to call it. "I've never seen something like this before."

"Ghost-ward. From medieval Britain somewhere; my mum picked it up a few years ago," Jess replied. "But here's your real gift." She handed him the box, smiling faintly.

"What is it?" he questioned.

"Look."

* * *

 

It was Violet, for once, that waited for him on the steps of the Fittes building. She clutched an envelope, a notepad, and a manila folder to her chest; several were peeking out of the top of her bag. A pen, as usual, was tucked behind her ear.

"You're late, Quill," she stated as they made their way into the Fittes hallways, Quill trailing slightly behind. If she noticed the new rapier at his belt, she didn’t say a word. She was jabbering on about the case, but the ginger agent's ears were closed. It was the Hall of Fallen Heroes, and Ruby's eyes were burning holes through whatever was left of his heart. Sad despite the smile on her painted face, they followed him as he walked. It was unnerving for the young agent, even if Violet never saw a thing. She never did, and none of the rest were any more observant. Ruby Seinfeld was Quill's burden to bear, Quill's own tell-tale heart.

She would haunt him for the rest of his too-long life, her blue eyes staring at him from rivulets of rain and the rushing water of the river Thames.

The case was simple enough. They were in and out in a matter of hours, with the shade safely dispatched and its Source secured. There was no real danger, no reason for Quill's growing sense of fear. Yet the fire-haired agent had a hand on his rapier the whole case and cab ride home. It was only when he shut the iron-clad door to Gravedigger Sykes' school that he finally relaxed, exhausted and afraid. He sank against his bedroom door, energy drained, and hoped that the nightmares would have mercy on him that night. He prayed that he would not be so utterly, utterly isolated in that world of ghosts and demons.

Quill truly was alone. He had no one at all except for the pretty, dark-haired girl whose nightmares were as agonizing as his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapters are going to take longer to get up, since I only have parts of them planned out and/or written. The next one only has a little bit to go, luckily, so it should be posted soon. Again, I edited as best I could, but some mistakes always slip through the radar.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written pre-TEG, so it isn’t compliant with it. This isn’t a huge issue, but it will surface in some of the later chapters.  
> I just intended for this to be a short story on Kipps and his nature, and some of his motivations surrounding Lockwood and the crew. Any romance at all will be late in the story (and ends in tragedy, but you already knew that).  
> Comments and constructive criticism are welcome, and the writing improves as you go along. Again, I wrote this a year and a half ago, so I apologise for any grammatical errors. And yes, the chapters get longer as the story goes. Sorry about the length.


End file.
